Literary Analysis

Retrieved Reformation is a short story about a man named Jimmy Valentine. In the beginning of the story, he is being released from prison for his crimes of robbing banks and cracking into safes. After being released, he realizes that he wants to live a life of no crime. He becomes a dynamic character because he begins to dramatically change after meeting the love of his life, Annabel Adams. He wanted to begin a new life.

In “A Retrieved Reformation”, a selfish and unethical criminal named Jimmy Valentine is known from breaking into safes and robbing banks. In the first couple of pages of the story, we come to find that Jimmy was doing prison time because of the crimes that he would commit. On page 2 it states, “He had served ten months of a four- year sentence.” (pg 2) The reason that he only had to spend ten months was because the friends that he had were friends of the government so they told the judge to shorten the amount of prison time that Jimmy had to do. In this part of the story he is being released by a guard and he gives him some advice to stay out of trouble. “You’ll go out in the morning. Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You’re not a bad fellow at heart. Stop cracking safes, and live straight.” (pg 3) This advice would soon help Jimmy realize that he has to get his new life together and learn how to keep himself out of things that would get him in trouble with the law.

As soon as Jimmy Valentine was released from prison, the reader is shown many examples on how Jimmy Valentine is a dynamic character and how much he has changed throughout his life. The first example is as soon as Jimmy Valentine got released from jail, he started robbing banks again. One day, he was walking around Elmore, the new town that he lived in, and stopped in amazement of a woman whom he had never met before. Her name was...

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...Assignment 2
LiteraryAnalysis Essay
In- Class Assignment
500+ words
27-28 July
15% Week 4
LiteraryAnalysis Essay
• What is it?
– Analyzes literary text. How?
• By tackling any number of aspects of the content such
as the:
–
–
–
–
Aesthetic
Technical
Linguistic
Thematic (economic, political, philosophical, sociological,
psychological, etc.)
• It concentrates and uses the text (not real life) as its
base.
LiteraryAnalysis Essay
• Why do we write them?
– To help cement our understanding of the text
through the creative process of writing.
– To help me, the teacher, understand what you
have gleaned from the text;
– And how you have reacted to the themes and the
details of the text.
LiteraryAnalysis Essay
• How do we write them?
– There are many ways…aspects. This is the beuty of literature!
and no single correct one as long as you prove your point and
built your argument on evidence, implication, elaboration ,
analysis of the text .
– You will be given a question or proposition regarding a theme
or aspect of the text.
– Some examples of questions include:
• How does Dickens’ portrayal of children differ in Great Expectations
from the depiction in Oliver Twist?’
• ‘”Macbeth is a victim of circumstance.” Discuss.
LiteraryAnalysis Essay
• How do we write them?
– When analysing a...

...﻿Stella Brooks
Mrs. White
English 9 L2
6 January 2015
“The War of the Wall” LiteraryAnalysis
The short story “The War of the Wall,” by Toni Cade Bambara takes place someplace during the mid to late 1960’s to the mid 70’s, shortly after America’s integration and in the middle of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War era was a very troubling time and effected almost everyone living in America at the time. The war was to prevent and resist communism in Vietnam. America was losing the battle, and they didn’t have enough volunteers for an effective military. This is why they started drafting men to serve in the war. When someone was drafted, they had no choice but to go to war. This was very troubling and sometimes tragic for the families and loved ones of the men who got drafted, especially when they didn’t return from war. In “The War of the Wall,” the children on Taliaferro Street are troubled by the fact that a woman had come to their neighborhood looking to paint a wall on their street that had been dedicated by the children to a man called Jimmy Lyon who had been killed in the war, and also to the legacy of the children and their families in a time of segregation. The wall was clearly very important to them, and the narrator and his brother Lou planned to stop the woman from painting over it. In the end they fail, and the woman succeeds in painting their wall, and the kids of Taliaferro Street are shocked by what the woman, who turns out to not...

...LiteraryAnalysis Essay – Who’s Irish?
Diction and syntax are used in literature to give the narrator a certain atmosphere or to portray the narrator in a light other than the common person. Diction is defined as the choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness (Merriam-Webster). Syntax is defined as the way in which linguistic elements are put together to form constituents, as phrases or clauses (Merriam-Webster). Gish Jen use both of these literary tools very effectively in her story “Who’s Irish?” to display the narrator as a foreigner in America who is unaccustomed to the way Americans live.
The author uses broken English to cement the feeling of not being at home with the environment around you, including the feeling of being out of place. This accentuates the distance between the narrator and her daughter, helping the reader to understand that there is little connection between mother and daughter in this story. This makes understanding the actions of the mother in regards to disciplining Sophie easier.
The missing articles and simple words changes the image of the narrator within the reader’s mind, forcing them to see the vast differences between her and the other characters. The narrator is very traditional in her views about what should and should not be valued in life. The narrator sees more value in the strictness of her home country in how a child is normally raised; the long...

...Outline Structure for LiteraryAnalysis Essay
I. Catchy Title
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A. Hook
B. Author
C. Title
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E. A short summary
F. Thesis
III. Paragraph 2: First Body Paragraph
A. Topic sentence (what this paragraph will discuss, how it will prove your thesis)
B. Context for the quote
1. Who says it?
2. What’s happening in the text when they say it?
C. Quote from the text (cited appropriately)
D. Analysis of the quote: How does it prove your thesis?
E. Closing sentence (wrap up the paragraph to effectively transition to the next paragraph)
IV. Paragraph 3: Second Body Paragraph
A. Topic sentence (what this paragraph will discuss, how it will prove your thesis)
B. Context for the quote
1. Who says it?
2. What’s happening in the text when they say it?
C. Quote from the text (cited appropriately)
D. Analysis of the quote: How does it prove your thesis?
E. Closing sentence (wrap up the paragraph to effectively transition to the next paragraph
V. Paragraph 4: Third Body Paragraph
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B. Context for the quote
1. Who says it?
2. What’s happening in the text when they say it?
C. Quote from the text (cited appropriately)
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...﻿
LiteraryAnalysis of Two Texts
Renita Redding
Instructor: Irene Robles-Huerta
ENG 125
March 21, 2015
The short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, by Joyce Oates, (1966), and the poem, “What it’s Like to Be a Black Girl”, by Patricia Smith, (1991), are both about the coming of age of young girls and the conflicts that they encounter. The two pieces explore issues that most young girls have with their bodies and others during their puberty years. The literary elements that will be compared in this essay is imagery and symbolism. The main conflict in both pieces that will be explored is individual versus self. These literary elements and conflict will help us to explore the issues that these two individual young girls dealt with concerning their femininity and the loss of their innocence.
There are many types of conflicts all around us. The conflict of individual versus self is an internal conflict that takes place in the mind, Docimo, (2015). It is the thing or issues that keeps a character in turmoil in a story. In the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, the main character Connie is in direct conflict with herself. In the very beginning of the story it is apparent that she is very aware of her looks and knows that she is a pretty young lady. It is clear in the statement of her mother, scolding her for always looking into mirrors. Her mother tells her to “Stop gawking at...

...
LiteraryAnalysis
“Revelation”
Flannery O’Connor short story entitled “Revelation” was swayed by her personal upbringing in the South. She lived in the time where people from the South were very intolerant and narrow-minded towards people who had a different lifestyle and who were of a different race. Because Southerners believed people who did not live up to their wealth or status were inferior, it offered O’Connor the exact descriptions she wanted for the characters in this story.
The main character in this story, Mrs. Turpin, is extremely prejudice and uses many terms of racial terminology. All of the characters in this story are well-known by their physical looks, and some are well-known by the racial terms used in the story. Mrs. Turpin said that the higher class women were “well-dressed and pleasant.” Another time she refers to a poor woman as “white trashy” and a teenage female as “ugly.” We are able to understand the lifestyle of the South that Flannery O’Connor was a part of in her childhood by her choice of words in this story. An example, when Mrs. Turpin would talk to her black laborers.
There seems to be a major and minor social divergence in the story. The minor conflict is between the “white trash” woman and Mrs. Turpin; the problem stems from Mrs. Turpin thinking that she is in a higher class than this particular “white-trash” woman and most people. Mrs. Turpin is disgusted because the “white-trash” woman interrupted...

...PEST Analysis
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The use of PEST analysis will help our business to effectively adapt to the realities of the new environment and help us to create a marketing plan that will be effective and which will therefore enable our business to compete in the market.
Political Factors
Ireland is a neutral country therefore war and terrorism is very scarce in this part of the globe. So setting up a business in Ireland is quite safe. We are a small, private limited company and are main headquarters is based in Dublin which is the capital of Ireland which experiences little conflict with other counties and various countries that we might have to deal with world wide.
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...﻿Laura Riazzi
30 September 2009
A.P. English Literature and Composition 12
Mr. Lane
“Once Upon a Time” LiteraryAnalysis
“Once Upon a Time” is a reverse fantasy story written by Nadine Gordimer. The concept of a reverse fantasy is a tale that one expects to end happily ever after but has a plot twist where the ending is cruel or injust. The structure of this story begins as the narrator writes that they are asked to contribute to an anthology of children’s literature. The next moment, while lying in bed, they are abruptly awakened by an unfamiliar noise in his house which rests upon a hollow foundation. In order to calm himself, he begins to create a bed time story in his mind (Gordimer 220).Although the first part of the short story does not yet seem to fit into the artistic unity of the plot, it is essential for understanding the theme of the entire work.
The second half of the story begins with the explanation of a family living “happily ever after” in a suburb. The second story quickly establishes the protagonists, who are the husband, wife, and their little boy. Although having a large sign that reads, “YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED,” the wife, especially, is very paranoid about keeping their house safe and secure from the looming drunkards and riots, which are frequent in their area (Gordimer 222). The trusted house maid continues to give her advice about how to keep their belongings and lives robber-free. The plot moves on to explain that...